Installment 3

7.

But it is good. In fact, it’s great.

“Andy, dude, come in and have a seat.” Mr. Elevator says things like dude to make himself sound younger. He also does things like flash me the hang loose sign when we pass each other. No one does that anymore. It’s either refreshing or terrifying.

I inspect the expensive leather chair for droppings before sitting down and crossing my legs. I try not to stare at the piles of shit on the floor or the half-empty bottle of scotch resting on the corner of his desk which explains both the looseness of his stool and the especially cloying vapors filling the office. He sits on his desk in front of me. He has a lot of pubic hair. He stares at me with his mouth open.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“In the world of elevators, everything is up... And then down.”

“Of course.”

He takes a slug from his bottle of scotch, misses the desk on the return, and it shatters on the floor. He waves a dismissive hand.

“You ever heard of Dubai?” he says.

“Yes.” I think I have.

“Well we’ve got really good news.” He’s practically shouting. “They’re building a hotel that goes up into space and they want us to provide the elevator. They’re paying us in gold. That means a raise for everybody!”

I smile and say, “That’s great news, sir.”

“As you can see I’ve been shitting in my office.” He motions to the nearest pile of shit. “And... I think that has something to do with you but... why are you here?”

“Candy said you wanted to see me.”

“To tell you about the raise, my man!”

“I’m very appreciative. My wife left me. This will help with the mortgage or rent or, well, I haven’t got that figured out yet. She handled everything—”

He’s just staring at me and nodding and I decide to quit talking. I stand up and leave thinking eventually he’ll remember why he called me in there and that it probably has something to do with the piles of shit and I don’t really feel like dealing with it.

Back in the office I take a phone call because I see Candy staring at me from her desk and know she’s probably going to want me to do something horrible and answering the phone, even though it means talking to someone who probably has a really stupid problem, seems like the lesser of two evils. It’s a person calling from somewhere overseas. I can’t really understand them. I get the gist of it. Someone is stuck in one of their elevators. One of our elevators. And apparently has been for a couple of days. I tell him we just build and install them and ask if they’ve notified any sort of emergency services. He tells me that it’s our name on the elevator and therefore we must deal with it. I tell him we will and hang up. I’m not going to do anything. I breathe deeply, trying to center myself, and stand up to go outside and take a break. Candy is standing right behind me. She’s stealthy even though she looks like someone who should squeak when she walks.

“What’d Mr. El want?”

“Oh, you know, he just wanted to chat.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“Bowels.” I don’t know what else to say.

“Speaking of shit... Have you visited the restrooms lately?”

“Of course. I clean them like every day.”

“The ladies’ restroom is awash in menstrual blood. I don’t even want to know what the guys’ restroom looks like.”

“Spotless.” This is probably a lie. Thirty guys use the same restroom. It has one toilet, one urinal, and one sink. I stopped going in there roughly a week after I stopped cleaning it. That was about three weeks ago. I imagine what it must look like. Pubic hair and man splatter everywhere.

“I can smell it all the way out here.”

“That’s something else.”

“It’s your job. It’s like the only thing you do.”

“I was getting ready to go on break. I’ll take care of it.”

She trundles back to her desk. I go outside. One of the guys from the back is squatting down in the grassy area behind the parking lot. He’s holding a newspaper and there’s a roll of toilet paper to his right. I get in my car and drive home. I’ll tell them I got sick if they ask. Eventually someone else will clean the restroom. On the way home I notice a billboard that usually carries an advertisement for The Super Slutty Teen Show now bears only one word:
COMPLICIT

8.

The rest of the drive home, I wonder what I’m going to do about Buddy. I decide I’m going to act like we’re best friends.

9.

I’m so excited by this revelation I don’t even bother shutting the front door. Buddy isn’t downstairs so I rush up to the bedroom. He’s still in bed. The towels are all thrown off him and he’s wearing only his white briefs. I don’t want to make him feel weird so I strip down to my boxer briefs and jump beside him on the bed, playfully prodding him.

“Hey, bro, wake up!” I say.

He rolls over. He’s really groggy. I notice he has a mustache for perhaps the first time. I grab a pillow and hit him with it, not too hard.

“What...”

“Yeah, bro, it’s time to get up. Wanna go downstairs and watch Man vs. Food?” I hit him with the pillow again.

“Brush teeth.”

“Yeah, man, we’ll brush our fucking teeth together.”

I rush off to the bathroom, grab all the toothbrushes and toothpaste and a glass of water, and for the next few minutes we are putting toothpaste on toothbrushes and some of it is spilling on the bed and we’re both smiling and brushing the holy fuck out of our teeth and there’s water everywhere and I feel like we’ve established some kind of bond that will make our coexistence something peaceful and long lasting.

Even though the house is freezing, neither one of us bothers putting on any clothes. Buddy takes a bunch of pills that are in the nightstand and I go around the house opening all the blinds, letting the sunlight in. It’s early afternoon and school must be letting out because there are yellow school buses everywhere and dog faced children running down the sidewalks, laughing and tackling each other, throwing cell phones like footballs, texting wildly, clothes either so tight they might as well not be wearing any or so large they’re flapping in the breeze and encumbering movement. And they’re all saying “fuck” and “shit” and “pussy” as loudly as they possibly can. I think to myself that civilization has ten years, tops. But I still feel good. I got a raise. I have a new best friend. The sun is out.

I turn on the TV and the closing frame of what I’m pretty sure is a snuff film flickers across it before the word “DANGER” appears in red block letters on a yellow background. I click the TV off. I’m covered in goose bumps and remember that I forgot to close the door. I notice a folded piece of paper lying on the floor just in front of the frame. I unfold it. It says, in palsied handwriting: “I had a really great time last night.” And it’s signed “Estelle” with a phone number under it and at the bottom is either a lipstick kiss or a dirty anus mark.

I’m not sure I want to pursue this thing with Estelle. She seems aggressive. I wish Buddy would come downstairs so we could eat bagels, drink beer, and give each other fist bumps.

I go to the bottom of the stairs and shout “Buddy!” repeatedly. Then I feel stupid. He probably thinks I’m retarded. Then I remember something Agatha said about retarded people only being here for people to laugh at. She was very cruel. I wonder where she is now with all those coats. Probably Alaska. I wish I lived inside of a bear.

10.

Buddy comes downstairs. He’s wearing his underwear and a t-shirt that says: PROGRESSIVELY DUMBER.

“Hey, cool shirt. Is that a band or something?”

He stares at me. Buddy really rocks the mustache. I think about growing one but I think my mouth is too small. My father always had a mustache. I never saw him without one. It made me distrust him. He eventually drowned himself in protest of children.

“What took you so long? I’m afraid Man vs. Food isn’t on anymore. I would have DVRed it but I couldn’t find the remote control.”

“Blood mouth.”

“Aw, man, did we brush our teeth too hard?”

He points into his mouth. I get up close and look in, stick the tip of my index finger against his mustache. He has a giant sore on his tongue. It’s bloody.

“That looks bad,” I say. “It almost looks like cancer. Do you want to go to the doctor?”

“I will just sit down.” He moves over to the couch and sits down. I fight the urge to sit on his lap.

“Yeah, just sit down there on that comfortable old couch.”

I move to sit down next to him but he quickly sprawls out, taking up the whole couch. He stares at the ceiling.

“I know it’s rough as fuck being terminally ill and shit. I’ll go to the store and get some beer. I’ll buy a six pack and make them put each can in a paper bag. That way we’ll have six paper bags. And then I’ll come back and we’ll drink the fuck out of that beer. But first I need to put on some clothes because it’s cold outside and I’m only wearing my underwear.” I’m talking really loud now. Holding my hands away from my hips, palms out. Possibly just talking to hear myself talk but it feels like my ears are clogged up and there is a ringing somewhere deep inside my head and I imagine my brain lined with the same kind of sores as the one on Buddy’s tongue but I feel really energized and I just want to go outside and run around the block in my underwear until I can’t run anymore. I put on my clothes and try to fist bump Buddy on my way out but he’s already asleep so I just bump my other fist and then do that thing where you open up your hand and waggle your fingers to simulate an explosion.

11.

I can’t buy beer from the first place I go into because there are like fifty people inside and I think they’re having a tea party convention because they all have camouflage faces and are wearing Sarah Palin t-shirts and brandishing Bibles and talking about why no one should buy anything from terrorists and that Mexicans are taking all of our jobs and everything they say seems really nasty and self-interested and the Indian clerk looks afraid and it all just seems too heavy.

The next place I go to is better. The woman cashier gives me bags for all the cans and when I ask if I can have bags for my hands, she gives me those too and even calls me “Hon.”

I rush home to Buddy, surprised to find him awake. He’s watching a documentary about the Grand Canyon and looks terrified. I tell him maybe we should change the channel. He changes it to static, which was something I hadn’t seen in a while.

“I got some brewskies!” I shout because the static is up very loud. I take all the beers out of the bags and throw the bags around the room. I crack open a can and hand it to Buddy. “Let’s pound the shit out of these!”

He’s trying to choke down the first one but it’s probably really hurting that sore in his mouth. I’m on my third one before he’s even half-finished with his. He says, “Agatha,” and looks sad and I realize I don’t know how to respond to that. After all, she’s my wife. Maybe. Then he says, “Bed,” and I tell him it’s not even dark out but he’s going up the stairs and I pound two more beers and think about finishing his but I imagine that it’s full of gross tongue sore germs and I just leave it because I don’t want to catch his cancer but now the static on the TV is really loud and I feel like doing something, I feel like exploding, so I pick up the phone and call Estelle and just as I’m saying, “I really want to see you,” the static on the TV fades and is replaced by a commercial for guilt.

Estelle tells me we’ll burn down the world and I wonder if that’s what I want and ten minutes later when she rips through the front yard in a Jeep with vanity plates that say “2DEEP” I realize I might not have a choice.

Installment 2

3.

The blue dawn slants through the window and the sound of birds is everywhere. I’m lying on the floor. My skin feels crusted over and it’s very cold. I struggle to stand up. Old people are lying passed out all around me. The stench of something like burning carpet stings my nostrils. I have to get out. My chest feels tight. I feel like I’ve done something horrible. I look for Estelle. She’s in the corner, slumped against the wall, her shoes off and her lingerie twisted around her. Her false teeth are jutting from her mouth, a string of drool connecting them to her wrinkled chest. I nudge her with my foot. She snaps awake.

“I need to go,” I say.

“You can take my car. Keys are in the purse.” She waves her hand toward a gigantic orange purse.

“Thanks.”

I rifle through the purse until I come up with the keys. This smell is really bad. It makes me think there might be a fire somewhere in the house or apartment or wherever. I cross what I think is the living room but end up in another room almost exactly like it except there aren’t so many people on the floor. There is only a man in a wheelchair laughing and pointing at a small television. The only thing on the screen of the television is something in block letters that says:
PLOT IS A CON

I open the door to this room and it leads to the outside and a wooden landing that begins a steep and rickety set of stairs. It’s even colder outside and I wish I had a jacket. I forget exactly what Estelle’s car looks like and all the cars parked on the curb are huge. Most of them are unlocked. Some of them are filled with horrible things and stains and smells that come from some kind of insane underworld.

I finally find Estelle’s car and fire the engine. There is a blood stain on the windshield and I remember the man we hit in the parking lot last night. I wonder who he was. Before pulling away, I get out of the car and remove the license plates with a survival knife I find in the glove compartment.

I head for what I hope is home. Last night is hazy. I’m not exactly sure where I am. I’m not at all sure of what happened last night. We went back to Estelle’s place and she reached into her gigantic purse and pulled out a bunch of pills and said, “Here take these,” and I did and then I kind of blacked out. I think I remember chanting at one point in the evening. There may or may not have been a man there wearing horns. It might have actually been the Devil. I don’t believe in the Devil. But there was chanting and an orange strobe light and there might have been a sacrifice.

I’m shivering in the car. I turn on the heater. I turn on the windshield washers to try and get some of the blood off. I can never remember a time when cars were this large. Maybe when I was a very small boy. But that might have only been because I was so small and everything seemed larger.

Some memory suddenly washes over me and I remember being in high school, sitting in the passenger seat of Brandon’s car and two amazingly beautiful and absolutely ripe girls sat in the back seat and we were all smoking cigarettes laced with marijuana and laughing and the world seemed absolutely alive and open and stretched out before us. And I wonder what happened to that feeling. I wonder what happened to my best friend. I’m on the verge of crying so I turn on the radio. It’s an episode of Fresh Air and Terry Gross is interviewing cancer and I think that doesn’t really help very much.

Maybe I should go home and get my car before going to work. Maybe I should ditch this car.

A block away from my house I pull Estelle’s car into an abandoned house’s driveway, cautiously look around to make sure no one is watching me, and get out, leaving the keys in the ignition. I walk home with my hands in my pockets.

4.

I get close to the house and see Buddy standing in the front yard in his underwear, his breath pluming out from the side of his mouth. There is a girl dressed in a black and white cheerleader’s outfit in front of him. She is crying and he is stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. She’s holding one black pom pom down by her knees. He kisses her on the forehead and she walks away, stopping to shove the pom pom into the sewer before catching a bus that stops at the corner. Buddy waves as she gets on.

He looks at me and says, “It is cold.”

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard him speak before. He sounds robotic.

“Agatha took all the coats,” I say. “Who was that?”

“Girl.”

“What’s her name?”

Buddy stares at me and doesn’t answer. He turns and goes into the house. I follow him. I need to grab my keys. I go upstairs, thinking maybe I’ll take a shower to try and get this crust off me. Buddy is already in bed. There’s a trail of blood leading into the bathroom. I weigh myself, sigh, and hop in the shower. When I get out there is no towel. I let the steam out of the bathroom and walk through the freezing upstairs. I can’t find a towel anywhere. I use a t-shirt to dry off and then get dressed. I glance over at Buddy one last time and realize he is using all of the towels to cover himself. I wonder how I can get Buddy out of the house.


5.

Someone has broken all of the windows in my car. The stereo has already been stolen so they took the passenger seat and replaced it with a mutilated raccoon. I open the passenger side door, grab one of the many fast food bags on the floor, and remove the raccoon. I think about shoving it down into the sewer but decide not to. I imagine the raccoon’s family coming along and finding it and deciding to give it a proper burial or perhaps a cremation.

The drive to the elevator factory where I work is freezing. I stop at McDonald’s on the way because I’m really hungry but also kind of sick and think McDonald’s will either fill me up or make me vomit. I once ate at McDonald’s every day for a month, trying to win their Monopoly sweepstakes. I really need a million dollars. I need to stop working at the elevator factory. I need to start playing the lottery. A few years ago I self-published a book called Dick Swap about two guys who ritualistically trade penises but, when one of the penises goes missing, an absurd bromance of epic proportions ensues. So far it’s only sold twelve copies and I haven’t written anything else. It’s not making me a millionaire. I haven’t even recovered the amount it cost to publish it in the first place.

I order the number two and eat it on the way to the elevator factory. I take a deep breath and go inside. I’m only an hour late today. I feel good about things.

6.

The elevator factory towers fifty stories into the air. There is only one floor at ground level. The height is just an elevator shaft. There’s a warehouse part where blue collar men assemble the elevators. The rest of my coworkers are just people of various weights who take the elevator to the top and then ride it back down. Occasionally there are fatalities. My job is mostly to answer the phones and also clean the restrooms, which I don’t like to do and haven’t done for a very long time. When I go inside, the office manager is waiting for me. Her name is Candy. She looks like a man in drag. She tells me the boss would like to see me. I go back to his office and he opens the door and he’s not wearing any pants and his office smells like shit and I see actual piles of shit on his floor and I know it isn’t going to be good.

Installment 1

1.

The week after high school graduation my friends decided to take a trip to the Grand Canyon. I was going to go with them. The night before we were to leave I had a terrible nightmare. I stood on a promontory overlooking the Canyon. My friends were there, Greg Handel and Brandon Henson. They made me feel like my last name should have started with an “H”. They were really happy, jumping up and down. I was nervous. A fall would be catastrophic, but I could feel the Canyon sucking at me like a vortex. Greg said, “Watch this. I’m having a great time,” and jumped over the edge. I wanted to watch him fall through all that red brown space but I didn’t want to get any closer to the edge. Then Brandon said, “I really like to jump,” and leapt off, leaving me alone on the promontory with that sucking feeling. I wanted to jump but I was too afraid. I turned to move off the promontory, to more solid ground.

Snakes, a lot of them, were blocking my way. I think they were coral snakes. I think those are the poisonous ones. There’s a rhyme to help remember which are the poisonous kind but I couldn’t remember the rhyme. Behind the snakes, a bear, ferocious and snarling.

I woke up with a deep sense of loss and called my friends. Told them I couldn’t go.

I stayed behind.

It’s been over a decade and I haven’t seen or heard from either one of them.

I stayed behind.

I’m still here.

2.

Agatha is either my wife or my roommate. I vaguely recall getting married a year or more ago at a bar in Las Vegas. That may not be accurate. Regardless, we sleep in the same bed and sometimes I think we have sex but she could be lying to me. That is, the vagina might not be real. It might not be her. It’s usually dark.

She has another sleeping partner who she calls Buddy but I think he’s more than that. I think she’s having an affair.

I try bringing this up to her. We’re in the bedroom. Buddy is sprawled out on the bed behind us, naked and snoring, one hand cupping his genitals.

“Not here,” she says. “Let’s go downstairs.”

We go downstairs. She points to the closet and says, “There’s the closet. Why don’t we go try on coats and talk about this later.”

I follow her to the closet. She pulls out all the coats and piles them on the floor. We try them on. I take off each coat before putting on the next. She just layers them. Most of the coats are too tight.

“You’ve gained weight,” she says. “You look like a gorilla.”

“You’re really wearing a lot of coats.”

“Because I can. You could only wear like one coat. Barely. Fatso.”

“That hurts.”

“I can’t be with anyone this sensitive. I think I need to go.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I need to go.”

She leaves the house. I watch her disappear into the night. I shut the door and go upstairs next to Buddy and fall asleep.

The phone rings. Buddy stops snoring and barks out like he’s in pain, like something terrible is happening to him in his sleep. I answer the phone.

“Hello.”

“This is Estelle.”

“Hi Estelle.” I don’t know anyone named Estelle.

“I feel wild.”

“You sound really old.”

“I’m like sixty-five or eighty.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.” She sounds orgasmic.

“Can I help you?”

“I wanna get sick and nasty.”

“That’s pretty gross.”

“That’s just what I want.”

“Okay.”

“Want me to come over?”

“I’ll meet you.”

“On the corner?”

“Sure. On the corner. Do you know where it is?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Hot.”

“You bet.”

I hang up the phone and wonder if I should tell Buddy I’m leaving. I guess it doesn’t really matter. I head out to the corner. It’s chilly outside and most of the houses are abandoned. There are many dogs barking. Barking and barking and barking and it’s late at night but the birds haven’t started chirping yet. A car roars down the street and screeches to a halt at the corner. It’s something gigantic and dark colored. Maybe a Cadillac or a Buick. The door swings open, scraping the sidewalk. Estelle hops out. She’s dressed inappropriately. Slinky lingerie and fishnets it looks like she bought at the stripper store. Her white hair is curled tight.

“Hey,” I say.

She stumbles around on her high heels, drunk, and shouts, “Get in the car, Porky!”

I do what she says. The door’s really heavy. The door itself is bigger than a lot of cars. The interior is covered in wood. Ashtrays are everywhere, most of them overflowing.

“You know,” I say. “I’m not really that fat. I’m only about twenty pounds overweight.”

“I don’t care.” She seems really angry.

“It’s just.. you called me Porky. My wife left me because I was too fat.”

“I was talkin’ about that fat cock. I call all my boys Porky.”

“Oh... okay. Hey, is that a wig?”

“This?” She points at her head.

“Yeah.”

“It sure ain’t my real hair.”

“Well, I mean, is it like a wig or did you scalp somebody?”

She peels out from the curb. “Wig.” Her wrinkly mouth draws tight.

“Can I try it on?”

She grabs it off her head and throws it into my lap. I put it on and bend the mammoth rearview mirror to look at it. I look pretty good. She drives over a possum and laughs. I laugh too. Estelle’s fun.

She lights up a really long cigarette and passes the pack over to me. The pack has a smiling horse on it with the word “Magic” written across the horse’s stomach. I light one up and crack the window.

“So what’re we doing?” I ask Estelle.

“I told you I feel wild.”

“I know but I don’t know what that entails. When I feel wild I get scared and think the best thing I should probably do is take some deep breaths or maybe a nap or something.”

She makes something that might be a smirk but with all the wrinkles in her face I can’t really tell. She doesn’t say anything. I try to turn the radio on and she smacks my hand away and tells me if I try to do it again, she’ll burn my face. Without her wig she looks ghoulish and creepy. Eventually we’re in an even worse section of town. She pulls the car into the parking lot of an all night grocery store and kills the headlights. The grocery store is lighted in a way that makes it look terrifying. I don’t want to go in. It has one large window in the front but it’s too dirty to see through.

An old man walks out of the grocery store. He isn’t carrying any bags or anything and I think this seems strange. Estelle guns the car, blasting the headlights. The man’s eyes widen and his legs bend as he begins his attempt to dive away but the car hits him, throwing him up onto the hood and over the roof and we are out of the parking lot and speeding along an alley behind the grocery store and there are trashcans full of fire and hollow-eyed men leaned up against garages and the moon shines overhead and we are both laughing and laughing and laughing and then Estelle digs a claw-like hand into my thigh and says, “Give me back my fucking wig.”

Advance Praise!!!

"I'm only writing this blurb so I can promote Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You." - Bradley Sands, author of Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You

"I like books. I like Anderson Prunty. This book is like a book met Anderson Prunty." - Philip Overby, creator of Love Letter Monkey and the video game Devil Owl Warlord Yakuzi

"Brings to life vivid images of horrific Dayton, Ohio. Though I'm not entirely sure it's set there." - Chris Bowsman, author of A Life On Fire

"Yeah, I skimmed through it. It's average and forgettable." - Jordan Krall, author of The Sex Beast of Dayton, Ohio

"I will do both of those things right away!" - Famous Author Mykle Hansen, author of Help! A Bear is Eating Me!

"There are two books I won't read this year. This is one of them." - Gina Ranalli, author of Praise the Dead

"I'm only blurbing this because I've never been asked to blurb anything before. I only managed to make it through the first couple 'installments'. It doesn't really make a lot of sense. The characters are idiotic and abhorrent, storylines seem to blossom with no possible resolution. It's written in a kind of pretentious first person present voice which I also really hate. Probably only recommended if you have A LOT of free time." - Wayne Hixon, author of Vampires in Devil Town

***I'm always looking for great blurbs for Fill the Grand Canyon and Live Forever. Having read it is not necessary. Feel free to comment to add a blurb.